Uttarakhand CM Dhami Meets Union Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar
Requests for allocation of 500 MW additional power supply from central thermal plants to Uttarakhand permanently
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami paid a courtesy visit on Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in New Delhi and congratulated him on assuming the charge of Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Union Minister of Power.
The Chief Minister requested the Union Power Minister to approve the permanent allocation of 500 MW additional power supply from Central thermal plants to the state of Uttarakhand.
The Chief Minister said that in the state of Uttarakhand, only hydroelectric power generation centers are available for power generation, as a result of which more than 55% of the state’s total energy mix is obtained from hydroelectric power sources. Only 55% of the state’s energy mix is obtained from coal-based plants. As a result, the lack of base load capacity in the state is becoming a difficult challenge for the state’s energy security.
In winter, on an average, only 300-400 MW of energy is obtained from the hydroelectric power sources of the state, which makes the situation of energy security even more serious. Construction of hydroelectric projects of about 4800 MW capacity in the state is pending in various High Courts or at other levels mainly due to environmental reasons, due to which the gap between demand and availability of electricity in the state is constantly increasing due to the inability to develop the available hydropower in the state.
The Chief Minister said that in the Resource Adequacy Studies conducted this year by the Central Electricity Authority, New Delhi, it has also been recommended to obtain 1200 MW additional electricity from coal based thermal plants in the Energy Mix of Uttarakhand state by the year 2027-28.
The target is to double the economy of the state in the next five years. To achieve this target, the state’s infrastructure has to be expanded extensively, in which the state is mainly attracting investment in the areas of industrialization, service sector in which tourism related infrastructure is important, agriculture and forestry and education etc., as a result of which a sharp increase in the demand for electricity is expected in the near future.
The Chief Minister requested the Union Minister to approve the permanent allocation of 500 MW additional power supply from Central Thermal Plants to the State of Uttarakhand to meet the base load requirements of the State and to reduce the gap between demand and availability of power.
